You Had Me At Christmas: A Holiday Anthology (21 page)

“I know,” she said. “I think that’s why I was scared. I was lying there next to you watching you sleep… you’ve got this really cute snore, by the way.” She smiled. “Anyway I thought to myself that I had never wanted anything more. It scared the hell out of me, because then I thought about what it be like if I trusted you and you left me.”

“It would hurt. How do you feel now?”

“Pretty terrible.”

“You didn’t save yourself anything, but you deprived yourself of what could have been something wonderful.”

Could have been.

“Is that what you came here to tell me? That we could have had a good thing?”

John stood. “I wanted to know if I had done something to upset you. I wanted to know if you suddenly realized you’re too damn good for me.” He looked around the office. “I mean, look at this place. Your office is bigger than my whole damn boat.”

“No. And no,” Kate said firmly.

John looked at her as if deciding whether or not he believed her. Then his chin jutted out a little and she could see he’d made up his mind. “Go get me your phone.”

“My phone?”

He raised his eyebrows as if to say he was in no mood to be questioned, and Kate got up and walked over to her desk. She picked up the smart phone and handed it to him.

“Unlock it and I’ll put my number back in.”

Trying not to smile like some lovestruck girl, she unlocked it and handed it to him. He was going to give her a second chance.

She watched him tap in numbers. “Oh, and you have to…”

“Unblock me. Yep. Got it.”

Kate winced. “Sorry.”

He handed her back the phone with a grim expression. “It’s okay to be scared, Kate. I get it. I’m not going to lie, you scare the shit out of me too. But if it happens again, you don’t run. We talk about it. Deal?”

She put her hand out for him to shake on it. “Deal.”

“Okay,” he said, using that hand to pull her against him. “Let’s try this again. Kate McCullen, will you have dinner with me, John Abbott.”

John Abbott, she thought. It was a nice name.

“Yes, John, I will.”

“Good. Now kiss me, so I can get back to work. My boss is going to kill me. Fortunately he’s a sucker for romance.”

Kate offered him a peck on his cheek. “The glass, my employees.”

“Fuck that,” John said and dipped her over her his arm, kissing her as if he was Rhett Butler and she was Scarlett.

When he finally pulled her back to standing, Kate’s face was beet red and yes, her employees had gathered around her office to enjoy the show. The traitor Sally was front and center, giving her a thumbs up.

“I’ll never live this down.”

John gave her a quick swat on her backside, which had her blushing even more.

“I’ll call you,” he told her.

“I’ll answer.”

He smiled and opened her door, and the sea that was her extended family parted ways. John walked up to the receptionist Mary with a bashful smile. A smile even the stern Mary would forgive.

“Sorry for crashing.”

“Who is this man?” Mary wanted to know.

Kate smiled. “Everyone, this is John. And he’s…”

“I’m her boyfriend. Get used to seeing me around. Later, babe.”

She gave him a wave and watched him walk back down the hall. A few moments later she could hear the roar of his motorcycle taking off.

“That’s right. I have a boyfriend,” Kate said proudly. “Now get back to work!”

Thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed One Naughty Christmas Night! I love to hear from readers so please leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads before you go to let me know what you think.

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by

Jennifer
Lohmann

Selina Lumina wants nothing more than to escape her small hometown in Idaho and her abusive stepfather, and fulfill her dream of working in the art world. But things like that require money, and that’s something she just doesn’t have. But when a handsome stranger sits down in her section at the local diner, he might be just what she needs. Software developer Marc Murcowski recently made millions selling an innovative app and, bored and lonely now that he seemingly has no purpose in his life, makes her an offer she can’t refuse.

As they travel together across the country and their desire for each other grows, Selina must decide if she’s willing to throw away the life she’s always dreamed of for a chance at happiness with Marc.

Jennifer Lohmann is a Rocky Mountain girl at heart, having grown up in southern Idaho and Salt Lake City. When she’s not writing or working as a librarian, she wrangles three cats and one elderly dog. Fortunately, the boa constrictor is better behaved. She lives in North Carolina with her own personal Viking.

To the Ginger Viking. I quite literally could not have done this summer without you. You make it all possible.

O
ut of the
small gap between the dirty, cheap, cream-colored curtains, Selina Lumina watched her stepfather park in the driveway, leaving both left wheels on the snow covering their front lawn. She let the curtains fall closed and contemplated her possible exits. The Christmas lights her mom had strung on the front stoop the Friday after Thanksgiving would make it easy to watch Gary stagger up the front walk before he stumbled on the ice on the stairs, but there was no way he was drunk enough she could slip past him unnoticed.

Her heart beat a little faster, fear making it difficult to swallow, slowing her movements, and clouding her ability to come up with a plan. Two facts lingered at the front of her mind, shoving out everything else, even as she tried to take deep breaths and
think
: Gary was drunk. And her mom was at work.

The hard fall of Gary’s boots on the front step broke through the panic that had frozen her in place, and she bolted for her room. She shoved every piece of furniture she passed into the path between the front door and her room, tripping over her own feet as she hurried. She banged her shin against the coffee table and took the corner so quickly that she smashed her hand into the edge of the wall.

“Ouch.” She cradled her hand to her chest, swallowing her holler. Tears welled in her eyes at the pain in her wrist bone, but she didn’t slow down. Terror burned through her body, propelling her forward. She burst into her bedroom just as she heard Gary slide his key into the lock at the front door. Both doors slammed shut at the same time. Selina twisted the small lock in her doorknob while Gary ran into the stool by the front door.

His first obstacle.

The stool had stopped him once before. A kitchen chair had stopped him another time. And the ironing board yet another. As she sank against her bedroom door, her back against the hard wood, she knew that no piece of furniture she put in Gary’s way would stop him forever.

Her cheeks were wet as she dropped her head between her knees. Gary had always been a creep, but he’d gotten worse since losing his job. To make up for the lost income, her mom had started working more, and he’d come to Selina for company. A couple of strange touches, some innuendos that had made her cringe, and then he’d grabbed her arm and pulled her toward him.

Yelling and kicking had worked that time. Gary had been apologetic the next morning before going out to the library to apply for jobs. He’d even gotten one and worked at it for a month, going out and drinking with his buddies while her mom worked nights, and then he’d gotten fired again. The drinking started earlier and earlier in the day, and her mom worked later and later. Innuendos had changed to outright statements about needing to “get some” and her mom not being around.

She covered her mouth with her hand to cover her breathing. Her car was parked out front, but maybe if he couldn’t hear her, he would think that she had gone out with friends. She used to go out with her friends, especially before she’d adopted her mom’s solution and started waitressing as many hours as Babe would let her. If she wasn’t at school, she was working.

Gary ran into another piece of furniture, and she cringed. Tonight had been one of those nights when her exhaustion had caught up with her and she’d needed to come home to sleep.

He pounded on the door. “Selina!” he slurred. “I know you’re in there. Let me in, baby.”

Baby.
Bile rose up in her throat at the endearment. Gary always started off nice. Baby. Sweetie. Good time.

Gag.

Before the night was over,
baby
would turn to
bitch
and he’d stop promising her that she’d like it. They both knew he didn’t care if she would like it.

God, her eyes hurt. The rims, her eyelids, and the skin under her eyes all ached. She hadn’t known it was possible to be this exhausted. But even if Gary stopped twisting the handle of her bedroom door right now, she wouldn’t sleep again tonight.

The door rattled as he banged on it, the fading bruises on her back still tender from the last time he’d gotten this drunk and she’d been home. The tiny door lock wouldn’t hold him for long. Sometime in the future, he’d be in the perfect spot between drunk enough to try something and sober enough to be able to kick the door down.

She glanced across the room, in case tonight was the night. There, sitting under the window, was her backpack with a spare toothbrush, pajamas, jeans, her favorite sweatshirt, and twenty dollars. It wasn’t much, but it would be enough to hold her over until she could get back home and pack up the rest of her stuff.

Gary’s footsteps retreated down the hall, and she eased her way back to a stand. She’d fallen for the retreating-footsteps trick once. This time, she picked up her nightstand and moved it in front of her door.

The backpack and escape was a nice idea, but the truth was that she had nowhere to go, making fortification more realistic than retreat.

After she pushed everything she could think of in front of her door, she lifted her heavy limbs into bed and curled up in a tight ball, her eyes zeroed in on the door while she waited for her stepfather to pass out.

Like she did every other night she’d been trapped in her room, trapped in her house, and trapped in her life, she imagined the moment when all her hard work paid off and she was handed her diploma. That diploma, and the nursing job that would come with it, was her out.

Out of this house. Out of this town. Out of this life.

Whatever banged on the door next couldn’t have been Gary’s hand. Or his foot. The bang, and the accompanying crack in the wood, indicated something much bigger. Panic coursed through her, and very real and very scary possibilities drove her out of her bed. As the doorframe cracked behind her, Selina grabbed her coat and her backpack. She didn’t bother to hide her groans as she shoved at the window. She welcomed the cold air that blasted her face.

Her bedroom door broke open and crashed to the ground just as Selina was slipping through the open window and out into the night. The freezing early-December air made goose pimples rise on her bare arms, her breath visible. She raced around the side of the house to her car and climbed in. Besides the clothes in her backpack, she had a blanket in the car. She could sleep in the diner’s parking lot if she had to, but she was never going back to that house.

“C
urtis, you’re not
listening to me,” Marc Murcowski said into the overly warm air of the car as he navigated the twisting road up and around the mountain.

“What’s the big problem with Terry?” Curtis asked.

Terry had been their pet name for the encrypted text message app they’d sold for millions of dollars. Who knows what it was called now? Something that sounded more secretive, no doubt, and probably boring, too.

“Right now, Terry needs mutual contact-list entries to generate a key. But I’ve figured out a way around our problem.” He tapped his steering wheel excitedly. The solution was so simple, so elegant; they should have seen it months ago. Maybe they could have sold the company for more if they had.

The silence on the other end of the line lasted long enough that Marc glanced at the screen on his dash to make sure he still had service. Just as he was about to reach over and shake his phone—not that it would have any effect, but doing
something
would make him feel better and he couldn’t shake his best friend and former business partner into listening to him—Curtis cleared his throat.

“It’s not
our
problem,” he said. “The contact-list entry is
my problem.
You. Sold. Terry.”

The way Curtis enunciated every word made the joints of Marc’s jaw ache, but he didn’t give in to his irritation. Curtis had something Marc wanted. Namely, Curtis still had access to the app they’d developed and Marc didn’t.

“Technically,” he said, struggling to keep his voice jolly, “we both sold the company. You simply chose to stay on after all the checks were written.”

Marc slowed his SUV as he approached the next hairpin turn. He should be appreciating the scenery of the Idaho mountains in the early winter. After all, he had cancelled the lease on his Seattle apartment and driven off with the intent of seeing the country and skiing at all the best resorts. But pine trees and snowy mountaintops were competition for the way his mind had rolled over the contact-list problem since he’d driven out of town in search of . . .